The goal of this new editor is to make adding rich content to WordPress simple and enjoyable. This whole post is composed of pieces of content—somewhat similar to LEGO bricks—that you can move around and interact with. Move your cursor around and you’ll notice the different blocks light up with outlines and arrows. Press the arrows to reposition blocks quickly, without fearing about losing things in the process of copying and pasting.

What you are reading now is a text block the most basic block of all. The text block has its own controls to be moved freely around the post…

… like this one, which is right aligned.

Headings are separate blocks as well, which helps with the outline and organization of your content.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Handling images and media with the utmost care is a primary focus of the new editor. Hopefully, you’ll find aspects of adding captions or going full-width with your pictures much easier and robust than before.

If your theme supports it, you’ll see the “wide” button on the image toolbar. Give it a try.

Try selecting and removing or editing the caption, now you don’t have to be careful about selecting the image or other text by mistake and ruining the presentation.

The Inserter Tool

Imagine everything that WordPress can do is available to you quickly and in the same place on the interface. No need to figure out HTML tags, classes, or remember complicated shortcode syntax. That’s the spirit behind the inserter—the (+) button you’ll see around the editor—which allows you to browse all available content blocks and add them into your post. Plugins and themes are able to register their own, opening up all sort of possibilities for rich editing and publishing.

Go give it a try, you may discover things WordPress can already add into your posts that you didn’t know about. Here’s a short list of what you can currently find there:

Text & Headings

Images & Videos

Galleries

Embeds, like YouTube, Tweets, or other WordPress posts.

Layout blocks, like Buttons, Hero Images, Separators, etc.

And Lists like this one of course 🙂

Visual Editing

A huge benefit of blocks is that you can edit them in place and manipulate your content directly. Instead of having fields for editing things like the source of a quote, or the text of a button, you can directly change the content. Try editing the following quote:

The editor will endeavor to create a new page and post building experience that makes writing rich posts effortless, and has “blocks” to make it easy what today might take shortcodes, custom HTML, or “mystery meat” embed discovery.

Matt Mullenweg, 2017

The information corresponding to the source of the quote is a separate text field, similar to captions under images, so the structure of the quote is protected even if you select, modify, or remove the source. It’s always easy to add it back.

Blocks can be anything you need. For instance, you may want to add a subdued quote as part of the composition of your text, or you may prefer to display a giant stylized one. All of these options are available in the inserter.

You can change the amount of columns in your galleries by dragging a slider in the block inspector in the sidebar.

Media Rich

If you combine the new wide and full-wide alignments with galleries, you can create a very media rich layout, very quickly:

Sure, the full-wide image can be pretty big. But sometimes the image is worth it.

The above is a gallery with just two images. It’s an easier way to create visually appealing layouts, without having to deal with floats. You can also easily convert the gallery back to individual images again, by using the block switcher.

Any block can opt into these alignments. The embed block has them also, and is responsive out of the box:

You can build any block you like, static or dynamic, decorative or plain. Here’s a pullquote block:

Code is Poetry

The WordPress community

If you want to learn more about how to build additional blocks, or if you are interested in helping with the project, head over to the GitHub repository.

The interest rate you pay on your home mortgage has a direct impact on your monthly payment. The higher the rate the greater the payment will be. That is why it is important to know where rates are headed when deciding to start your home search.

Every month we would like to showcase someone in the Atlanta area making a positive difference in our community. For this month’s Community Spotlight Person of the Month, we chose Heather Vedell. She is a proud Penn State alumni as well as an amazing community leader. She works with Success with Honor and Wings Mercy Care. She encourages everyone to get involved in their community across the country because there is always a need. Thank you for watching our interview! Tune in next month for our second Community Spotlight interview.

The McDowell’s have always admired the Brookhaven neighborhood, its parks, location, and felt it would be a great place to live and raise a family. When it came time to buy a home, they didn’t have far to look.

The McDowells love to vacation as a family, whether it is a trip to the lake, the Florida Panhandle, a coastal vacation on the beautiful Mississippi Gulf coast, or Betsy’s hometown of New Orleans, water is never far from the equation.
But, no matter how great the “get-away” they always love coming home to Brookhaven!

“See you around town!” – The McDowell Family

Thank you Mark Urbano, for including us in the North Haven magazine. We love our community!

How’s the Luxury Market?

That’s the question this report answers for the “luxury market” nationwide, and for the luxury markets in more than 30 major metro areas.

The ILHM Luxury Market Report is a snapshot of the national luxury market. Like the Case-Shiller Composite Index and other national indices, it is a bundle of data from markets around the country that give a simplified view and try to get at the question of what’s happening in the marketplace.

Unlike virtually all of the other reports and indices out there the ILHM Luxury Market Report is focused exclusively on THE TOP OF THE MARKET. They know that markets are local. They also know that in a given place, at a given time, different price segments perform differently. Trophy homes at the top of the market might be in high demand and setting new price records, while in the same city starter homes might be stagnant and seeing major downward price pressures (or vice versa). Most major indices ignore this fact and lump all market segments together to get at some sense of overall market trends. They don’t.

They look at just the top of the market, so that you can see more clearly what is really happening in luxury markets around the country and the overall luxury trend at the national level.

Just in Time for Valentine’s Day!

For the love of her clients, Betsy McDowell connects and engages with them on a personal level during each and every real estate transaction. Her loyalty is what resonates the most. Betsy treats her clients with great respect and adapts to their needs.

She brings high standards, strong ethics, and integrity to the table with each and every client. Every day, Betsy and The McDowell Group work tirelessly to help clients achieve their real estate goals.

“I’m in the relationship business,” says McDowell. “I’m here to coach clients, and I always put myself on their side of the table. It’s about them—not me.”

It’s not surprising that Betsy has been recognized by O, The Oprah Magazine and Entrepreneur as one of Atlanta’s “Leading Women in Business.” Betsy McDowell and her clients enjoy relationships well
beyond real estate. Many are life long friends.

Just a friendly reminder:
Those of you who have owned and resided in your home as of Jan. 1, 2017, may qualify for a basic homestead exemption. Read the attached document from the City of Brookaven.
If you reside in another city or have additional questions give me a call. I will be happy to assist you with homestead exemption info or any other real estate questions you may have.

Betsy McDowell of The McDowell Group, Keller Williams Realty Atlanta Perimeter, has been recognized as an Expert Network Distinguished Professional.

Betsy McDowell is a distinguished REALTOR® based in Atlanta, Georgia. With twelve years of experience, McDowell has proven herself a foremost expert in her region’s residential and commercial real estate market.

With a people-oriented philosophy based on her motto “to serve and not be served”, Betsy has attracted an equally robust and loyal clientele. Beyond her industry-leading service, she shows her commitment to building enduring relationships by way of large-scale client appreciation events and small tokens of her gratitude such as complimentary sports tickets. Such a display of gratitude has played no small part in her receiving much of her business through referrals. Guided by her client’s best interests, she also has no problem referring customers to other agents if she is unable to provide them with a unique service that they need.